It would be hard to tell on the basis of media coverage who has truly been an larger asset to his country, John F. Kennedy Jr. or Frank Johnson.

Escaping reports on Kennedy is nearly impossible, but most citizens probably don’t know who Johnson was.

Frank Johnson died Friday at his Montgomery, Ala., home at the age of 80.

He was one of the most important figures in the civil rights movement.

It was his ruling that ended segregation on public transportation, and in parks, restaurants and schools.

It was his ruling that ordered the integration of the University of Alabama.

It was his ruling that allowed Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters to make their historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 despite the protests of the Gov. George Wallace.

Johnson was not only a white, Republican appointee; he was a law school friend of Wallace.

He refused to be called a liberal, insisting that he was merely “following the law.”

Johnson was a man of courage who was able to stand up against the tyranny of his peers and friends to do what he knew in his heart was morally and legally right.

In doing so, he became an outcast in Alabama’s capital.

Detractors burned a cross on his lawn and bombed his mother’s house, while former friend Wallace used the governor’s office to call Johnson an “integrating, carpet-bagging, scalawagging, race-mixing, bald-faced liar.”

Compare this to JFK Jr.’s contributions to society.

It is unfair that scrupulous, deserving people have to pass on in the shadows of overblown celebrity figures, but it seems to happen all the time.

The world was still mourning the death of Princess Di in August of 1997 when Mother Teresa died.

So remember Frank Johnson for who he was.